Search

Multi-wire saws with a diamond electrodeposited wire tool are widely used to slice hard and brittle materials. The properties of the materials significantly affect the saw’s performance in terms of slicing quality, efficiency, and accuracy. In this study, the effects of the material properties of workpieces on wire tool performance and tool wear are described. The main conclusions are as follows: the higher the hardness and toughness of the workpiece material, the longer the slicing time and greater the damage to the wire tool. The brittleness of the workpiece adversely affects the thickness variation more than its hardness. In addition, the frequency of chipping mainly depends on the hardness of the workpiece, whereas the chipping size mainly depends on the toughness of the workpiece.

The manufacturing costs of semiconductor products such as silicon wafers can be reduced by decreasing the kerf loss. In addition, a decrease in the kerf loss leads to an effective utilization of rare materials, which is environmentally beneficial from the viewpoint of saving resources. This study aims to reduce the kerf loss during slicing hard and brittle materials. Therefore, the possibility of using an extremely thin metal foil blade instead of a wire tool in slicing was examined. Initially, grooving characteristics using a metal foil blade (thickness: 50 μm or less) was investigated. The main conclusions are that grooving with a metal foil blade is possible and kerf loss can be reduced. The groove depth tends to increase as the machining time and particle size of abrasives increase. The groove width is smaller when a thin metal foil blade is used and vice versa. However, if the abrasive particle size is too large, grooving becomes impossible. Since the wear of metal foil blade increases with an increase in the particle size of the abrasive, it is necessary to use an abrasive with a particle size that is suitable for the thickness of the metal foil blade.